Finding Calm – Letting go of “Perfect”

The first snow. It’s New England. In a 1764 farm home, it is peaceful and quiet. The woods stoves crackle, there is a faint sound of a television in the distance and the only other sound is the slight hum of the last load of laundry, the sound of a button, or maybe a zipper, clinking in the drier.

Ahhhh Peace.

It’s funny how when you teach, learn and lead a lifestyle of health, we frequently look to all of the physical attributes of health. The additional weight on your joints. Daily exercise. The importance of stretching sore or overworked muscles. Choosing the right nutrition and eating organic. The list is endless.

Tonight, I think of the calm. The peace in your soul — finding balance. Getting to this place for me — took YEARS. And as I work through the path and journey to where I am supposed to be, I find that on occasion I take steps back. Steps that I don’t allow to define me but to give me momentum to continue to move forward. Each step defining personal growth.

The calm that surrounds me, is the comfort in the person that I am, the person I was meant to be. This person, naked to the soul, without makeup, without care, without the pressure of the world around me. My days are NOT perfect, but I choose to live each moment with gratitude, and this makes the moment just what they need to be for me.

You see, you as a person get to decide if you will react or respond to the events in your life. As you practice complete health and the action of responding, you gain the control over your actions and your behavior. Thus you have the ability to bestow kindness and respect to yourself and others, even in the most difficult of situations. Reflecting back, it wasn’t long ago, that I personally, used to define my self worth on what others thought. The way I reacted to situations, reflected exactly this. The clothes I wore, the car I drove, the party I never threw for my kids. I wanted to be the perfect mom. I wanted the perfect life. It was exhausting and I was failing. Failing because, this… wasn’t me. I wasn’t perfect and the sooner I realized it and stopped trying to be, everything was just perfect enough.

Today. Today I got to spend the day with my girl. And my heart is full. She is 5 and for the last 16 months her world has revolved around her little brother. It has been the hustle bustle of everyday life. Off to school. Off to work, dance, soccer, you name it. So today, when we had a sore throat, we took advantage. WE, mom and daughter, brought little guy to the sitter and WE spend the whole day, together. IT WAS AMAZING.

Ask me what we did. NOTHING exciting — or really out of the ordinary. We painted nails at home instead of going to the salon, had ice cream Sundays for breakfast instead of going out to eat, we cleaned our house dancing to Disney princesses and we played outside while we cleaned up the last bits of summer cheer before the snow fell.

Why was it special? because we spent this day without expectations. There was NOTHING special except for good, quality time. The sheer joy in her face when she watched her mom go down the slide, that nearly buckled on my way down, was only one word…priceless.

There will never be enough of these moments.

In this crazy world, where we rush, and go, and work and sleep, and work and sleep, the world passes us by. If for just one moment, we stopped, looked around, and really took in all of the things that truly mattered, we might be surprised just how much peace and happiness we would find. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

This is what health is about. When you ALLOW yourself to find you. To branch out from the norm. To be vulnerable, and kind, and compassionate. Stop looking around. Look within. You — are amazing… because you are you, and there is not one single person in this world that is just like you. You are special just the way you are. And that flaw you pointed out… that flaw, embrace it. That flaw might just be your greatest weakness, but your greatest weakness is your greatest strength.